Sunday, September 20, 2015 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Embrace

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 1
Mark 9:30–37

Jesus didn’t say that whoever welcomes a child does the work of the faithful. Or serves God well. Or gets brownie points. Whoever welcomes the child welcomes Jesus. And thereby welcomes God. Opens up the doors wide as wide can be and asks God to be at home.

Kate Munnik
“It’s Bigger Than Children”

Like so many of the political candidates on our national stage do, these disciples in Mark exhaust me. Perhaps you feel the same way about both the candidates and these disciples. Especially in the Gospel of Mark, these disciples just keep getting it all wrong. Immediately before our text for today, we learn the disciples had failed in their attempts to heal a boy because, as Jesus said, that kind of illness only comes out by prayer. The insinuation is that the disciples did not really even know how to pray, at least not in a way that taps into God’s power.

Then, immediately after that episode of failure, Jesus chose to tell them again what awaited him in Jerusalem—words we heard last Sunday. In this second passion prediction, Jesus was even more explicit: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

But even though the disciples remained confused by what Jesus was saying (remember, it was not how they imagined Jesus would fulfill his job description!), this time around, instead of asking Jesus to explain a little more, they simply remained quiet and tried to pretend that they totally got it. Their silence reminds me of that great adage: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Yet at the same time, while we might understand their desire to be quiet so they could fake it until they made it, we wonder how much their silence got in the way of developing their faith. What might they have gained had they possessed the courage to actually say something like, “Jesus, we know you think you are being clear, but we do not understand and are scared by what we hear.” What could have happened had they given Jesus the gift of their honesty? At the very least, I doubt the next argument would have taken place.

Maybe it was because the disciples were so captured by fear, so wound up trying to pretend they had it all figured out, that they suddenly switched topics amongst themselves and started arguing about something they did have figured out: their desire for power and greatness. Now this is where my exhaustion creeps in again, for the sharp disconnect between what Jesus had just told them and the topic of their argument with each other is ridiculous. Jesus spoke of weakness and sacrifice. They argued about who was the greatest. Jesus spoke of being killed by those in power. They argued about who among them would have the most power. It is as though they purposefully chose the most opposite response to Jesus’ words they could imagine.

And they must have known it. They had to have realized they were way off base and would just exhaust Jesus if he knew what they were saying. Otherwise, when Jesus asked them what they were discussing along the Way, they would not have clammed up. If their behavior were not so irritating, it might be funny. As Mark writes, “Jesus asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But the disciples were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.”

And when Jesus called them out on having such an absurd response to the prediction of his betrayal, suffering, and death, they kept their dreams of self-grandeur to themselves and once again chose silence instead of honesty. Jesus had to have been so fed up with them then. Yet out of his immense grace, he did not give up. Rather, he sat down and told them, as Preaching Mark in Two Voices puts it, “You want to be great? I’ll tell you how to be great. Serve anyone and everyone in sight. People who push to the front of the line will find themselves catapulted to the rear. Those who never hope to see the front will suddenly be first in line” (Brian Blount and Gary Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices, p. 182). And after making that pronouncement, Jesus embraced a child, taking him into his arms. Maybe that living parable would get their attention.

This image of Jesus holding a child will not be new to those of us who grew up in a church. Many of us have seen pictures of Jesus with children. They hung in our Sunday School rooms, were present on the cover of our children’s Bibles, perhaps were even plastered on Vacation Bible School fliers. But let’s get a reality check of what it was like to be a child in the days of Jesus. One scholar described it this way: “As helpless, dependent, nonproductive burdens, children were, at best, second-class citizens in the eyes of both classical Roman Gentiles and ancient believing Jews. One day these children might grow up to be productive and protective of their parents. But until then, they stood far down the social ladder—behind even women, the poor, the sick and the lame” (Hans-Ruedi Weber, Jesus and the Children, quoted by William Willimon in the Christian Century, 4 December 1985).

So while most children were undoubtedly loved by their parents, they were also the lowest on the totem pole of power, considered part of the household property. Frankly, it’s odd a child was even in the room with Jesus and his male disciples. The child’s place was typically with the women and the slaves. But for whatever reason, the child was there. And Jesus took that child in his arms and embraced him, perhaps the way the child’s own mother would hold him. And as he did so, Jesus tried one more time to lay the foundation, the absolute basis, for discipleship. “Whoever embraces one of these children in my name as I do, embraces me, and far more than me—embraces the God who sent me.”

In other words, sisters and brothers, if we want to embrace Jesus, to embrace God, then it is part of our discipleship work to bring the people from the margins into the very center, not just one time, but as a regular, ongoing spiritual practice. And if we are a person of power, which many of us in this congregation are, then it is part of our baptismal call to spend the time and energy it takes in order to purposefully seek out the people who are way too easily overlooked and usually unheard. And then those are the ones we serve. They are the ones we particularly embrace. They are the ones we go out of our way to welcome—not just on Sundays, but on every day. Frankly, it is what we are seeing with Pope Francis. Watch where he goes when he comes to the U.S. this week. He will live out Jesus’ words from this passage.

And whenever God’s grace helps us do those things—when we take everything we think we know about winning and greatness; who is deserving and who is not; who are the powerful and who are the weak—when we take all of that worldly knowledge and we turn that knowledge upside down—or better yet, throw it out the window—then Jesus might say we are finally getting it a little bit. We are letting the light of our baptism shine out into the world. That is what he was trying to demonstrate for those disciples that day in the house.

And though Jesus demonstrated this way of embracing him by his embracing of a child, Jesus’ call is not limited to children. Jesus wanted us to see everyone who never stands on the stage of power—all those who would never be considered winners, people too often brushed aside and seen as disposable—and then to serve them. Because when we do that, not only might that discipleship work change those folks whom we serve, but that kind of discipleship work will certainly change us. It will shape us more into God’s image. I promise you that. And that kind of discipleship work will also reveal God’s kingdom, God’s reign, God’s household for all who are looking to see.

That reminds me of Rebecca. Rebecca was a member of a congregation that a very good pastor friend of mine, Tom Are, once served. The last time my friend and I saw each other, he told me about her. Now Rebecca was on the church roll but she never attended. One year it was time for the every-member visitation campaign for their annual fund. That kind of campaign is when every single member of the congregation receives a visit from a leader in the church. The visitor checks in, often shares information about what is going on, answers any questions, and usually finishes the visit by inviting the person to make a financial commitment to God’s work through the church. One of the leaders who agreed to make visits was a man named Davis. He was in his thirties and had a couple of kids. And his assignment was to go and see Rebecca.

When he arrived at her house, Davis noticed her yard was not kept. The shrubbery had overgrown, and you couldn’t see in the windows. Nevertheless, he knocked on her door. Rebecca opened it but left the chain on. Davis said, “Good morning, I’m Davis. I’m from the church.” She replied, “I don’t go to that church.” Davis said, “I know, but you are still part of our church family and I just wanted to come by.” “I don’t go there,” she continued to insist. Davis noticed she had a coat on. It was cold that day. The temperatures hovered in the thirties. Rebecca was wearing a coat inside. She closed the door.

That visit did not go exactly as planned. But he did it. He could check it off. Davis went on to work. He had a space heater under his desk to keep his feet warm. As that heater cycled on, he thought about Rebecca and her coat. So at lunch he took the space heater back to her house. “It’s Davis,” he said. “I’m from the church.” “I know who you are. You think I got Alzheimer’s or something? I know who you are.” “I thought you might want this heater.” Rebecca was silent for a long time. “Could you show me how to turn it on?” she asked. “Sure.”

Rebecca was a hermit. My friend’s guess was that no one had crossed her threshold in years. She lived in a four-room house that was cluttered with the stuff of her life. Davis had been correct in his initial assessment: she had no heat and little food. They later found out she had been a professional dancer at one time, but any strength in her legs was long gone, and alcohol had taken much of the rest of her. That first day, Davis plugged the heater in and showed her how she could take it to the bedroom at night. He then left. Again, Davis thought that was the end of his church duty but said he found himself stopping by again. “Hi. It’s Davis from the church.” “You want the heater back?” “No, just checking.” He would stop by. “I have some groceries. It’s Davis, from the church. I thought I would trim your shrubbery.”

He confessed to my friend that he never intended to keep showing up at Rebecca’s house. Stewardship season had long passed. It wasn’t about that anymore. It was just that she was alone. To some degree maybe she wanted it that way and yet. . . Davis said he never really planned to stop by, but he would be on the way to Lowe’s or to the grocery store, and before he knew it he was on her street. He would find himself clearing the dishes from his own table and wondering if she had eaten. He would be repairing the sink in his own child’s bathroom and wondering if she needed something to be fixed. So he just kept stopping by. He did little things. It just seemed like what he was supposed to do, Davis told my friend, trying to explain something he did not even really understand. He and Rebecca were sort of strangers, after all. Weren’t they?

Three years after that initial visit my pastor friend led a memorial service for Rebecca. There was no family; a handful of folks came from the church. Davis was there. In her simple will she left her savings account to the church: $3,211. Her note said, “I want the church to have this, because when everyone else had, that man from the church wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Whenever my friend tells that story, he inevitably tears up because he realizes once again that Rebecca was not the only one changed by those visits. Davis and his family were changed. My friend was changed by watching a member of his congregation act with such faithfulness and grace, practicing what my friend often preached. And undoubtedly that kind of discipleship work had an effect on the larger congregation, too. It always does, even if you don’t realize it. What we do in our lives outside of this space affects our life as spiritual community, as witness.

Now, Davis did not have it all figured out and still had a long way to go. He knew that. My pastor friend knew that. My friend and I talked about how that was true for all of us. Even though we might have these beautiful moments of faithfulness and grace, we also fully realize that inevitably we are going to argue again about issues of power and greatness, sometimes give into delusions of self-grandeur, and not always register the occasional sharp disconnect between debates at Session and Jesus’ words about being last and serving all. And yet, even still, trying to intentionally live out God’s embrace will change us. It will change the church. And God will use that change in the world.

“I’ll tell you how to be great, how to be my disciple,” Jesus said. “Serve anyone and everyone in sight. People who push to the front of the line will find themselves catapulted to the rear. Those who never hope to see the front will suddenly be first in line” (Blount and Charles, p. 182). And every time you embrace one of these children in my name, one of these nonpower players, whose voice is rarely heard, whose name is rarely learned, whom no one usually sees—every time you embrace them, serve them, you embrace me, and not just me, but the one who sent me. Amen.